To identify group leader cognitions and the role experience may play in leader cognitive schemas, 60 participants were placed in 1 of 3 groups on the basis of group-leading experience and were exposed to a 20-min videotape of a group session, during which they completed a thought-listing instrument. Two judges free sorted the 1,299 collected thoughts and identified and defined 17 distinct thought categories. Three trained judges then placed 1,271 (97.8%) of the thoughts into these categories. Differences among experience levels were also explored through correlation and stepwise multiple regression analyses. Two thoughts, interpretation of group process and internal question regarding member, were found to account for 56% of the variance in experience level. Findings are discussed in terms of group leader cognitive processing, and suggestions for future research are provided.Group counseling, as opposed to individual counseling, presents a more complex therapeutic environment. Group therapists must reflect on and process vast amounts of information (Kivlighan & Quigley, 1991); thus, competent group leadership skills are important. Stockton, Morran, and Velkoff (1987) stressed the need for researchers to begin to conceptualize group leadership as a dynamic, flowing process that requires great flexibility and adaptability for optimal effectiveness. In Conyne, Harvill, Morganett, Morran, and Hulse-Killacky (1990), Morran stated that research must not ignore "the fact that leadership is largely a cognitive process" (p. 33) and that effective group leadership needs a comprehensive operational definition that attends to both the behavioral and cognitive components of leader behavior.Cognitive process research, which acknowledges the importance of understanding the many covert events occurring simultaneously within the therapeutic process, is important because it provides data upon which counselor trainers can create and empirically test counseling training methodologies (Hill, 1990). This research has centered around two main areas of study: counselor intentions (